A/N:
Welcome! This is my first fic in a few years and also my first in the MHA/BnHA fandom. I am really excited to see where this goes! The first couple chapters will be some backstory and a few time skips before we get to UA. The basic thing to know is that world events are just pushed back a bit. All the characters will be 18 upon entering UA and we'll be doing dorm life from the beginning, most likely!

Anyway enjoy!

Also I own nothing but my own characters!


Ch 1: A Fresh Start

Dax took a deep breath as she checked her new school uniform. It had arrived three days prior to the apartment she was… occupying. Renting would be a bit of a strong word, considering she was paying nothing and the actual building manager, who lived in another city, had no idea she was there.

She had made herself an entry in their computer network and marked the rent as prepaid by one year, figuring she would be able to get a real job by then. A similar method to the one she had used to get into her new school; Futaba High. Located right in the middle of Musutafu, and far from anyone who knew her name or face.

As she looked over herself in the mirror, she tugged on her tie with her left hand, straightening it as best she could. It had been nearly impossible to tie, but she'd managed it. "I'll have to see if I can convince sensei to allow me to skip the tie in the future… maybe they'll understand."

She checked her skirt, smoothing it out and picking a speck of dust from the charcoal fabric. Next her hand moved to her jacket, admiring how it looked, despite the… lack of symmetry. She had rolled up and buttoned the right sleeve, trying to eliminate the excess fabric before it could even become a problem.

"At least the shirt and jacket hide the scars" she mused to herself, giving a sigh as she finally began to look at herself, not her uniform. She was still not used to the new reflection in the mirror. Her left hand went over to her buttoned right sleeve, hesitantly resting on the small remaining limb hidden beneath the fabric, barely sticking down from her shoulder before terminating prematurely.

The wound had healed fairly well already, but it was still sore… or maybe she just felt like it was. 'Phantom pain' according to what she had read online. The body remembering it was supposed to keep going past what was left after a trauma like hers.

She shook her head, trying to dispel the dark thoughts that were starting to cloud her mind. Her attention was drawn back up to her face as she brought her hand up, tilting her own chin up and to the side, then to the other, checking for acne or blemishes or a smudge from her minimal make-up.

Dax rarely applied make-up, largely because she had little idea what she was doing with it. Besides, she could admit she was not too bad off on her own. Her large, brown eyes gazed back at her from the glass of the mirror, unobscured by her short chestnut hair she'd had styled into a pixie-cut for ease of living after her… accident. She missed her long braid, but there was no way to maintain it now… Even she wasn't that dextrous.

Next her eyes went back to the uniform, smiling at how well it fit her slim waist and how the jacket made up for her modest chest. The skirt wasn't too short, but still let her show off her long, black knee socks. All in all, she looked well put-together. In spite of the obvious.

She gave herself a final nervous grin as she picked up her school bag and swung it over her left shoulder. "Alright Malcor Dax… Your life starts now. And it's finally yours to live."


Dax felt… uncomfortable. She had enrolled herself in one of the best schools in the city, this was true, what she failed to bear in mind was that it was part of an escalator school system… The students in her class had known each other for years, since they were just little kids developing their quirks. Which made her stand out even more than her less-than-typical appearance.

She was currently standing at the front of her home-room class, smiling nervously as the horde of teenage faces stared her down. Her teacher, Ms Goto had just introduced her and was currently extending a small piece of chalk in her direction. Accepting it, she turned, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding as she lifted her left hand to the chalkboard.

That was the one lucky thing about her injury. She had been left handed to begin with, so at least her penmanship hadn't been reduced to chicken scratch by the loss of her right arm. This was, however, her first time writing her name on such a large canvas, so she quieted her mind to focus on not messing up her kanji. After a few moments, she gave the slightest nod and placed the chalk back on the board tray, turning and stepping to the side as the eyes of the room shifted slightly from her to the name behind her.

"Malcor Dax"

She gave the most confident smile she could and gestured to the name across her chest. "H-hello everyone! My name is Malcor Dax and I just moved to Musutafu over the break. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you!"

She was met with… crickets. Literally. There was a small container of the creatures in the back of the room next to a vivarium containing the class's pet snake "Bucky". Not one of the students greeted her or replied in any fashion, instead turning to each other with looks that ranged from indifference to confusion or even disgust.

After the silence dragged for a little longer than Dax would have liked, Ms Goto cleared her throat and reached over to pat Dax on the shoulder, her hand withdrawing rapidly as soon as she remembered that she had been standing on Dax's right. "Right… Well dear, how about you take that seat in the back there, next to Hatsume."

Dax followed her teacher's gaze to an empty desk in the very back corner of the room, right against the window. At the desk beside it sat a mop of pink hair with a girl attached beneath it. The only student, Dax noted to herself, who hadn't been glaring at her from the moment she walked in. She nodded and made her way back to the desk, sliding down into her seat and trying to ignore the lingering stares from her classmates.

"I suppose I was wrong about receiving a mixed reception… They seem pretty unified in the idea that I am not welcome."


Hatsume Mei was in her own world. She often found herself here, in the workshop of her mind, during school. Especially the boring parts! Like the start of every school year! All the teachers wanted to get to know everyone and do bonding exercises and learn names and go over rules and blah blah blah. They didn't need to learn each other's names! Everyone had been together since primary school or earlier and if they hadn't become friends yet, it wasn't likely. Besides, Mei didn't have time for all of that anyway! She was too busy brainstorming new ideas for her babies!

The pinkette smiled to herself as she thought of her makeshift workshop back at home, all those beautiful babies of hers just waiting for her to come home and tinker… She knew she needed to spend time in school too, - how else would she get into a good university to make even bigger and better babies? - but that didn't mean she wanted to be here.

Today was a little different though. She was surprised to, for once, see a new face. An ovular one with large, brown eyes and a short crop of chestnut hair atop it. She gave the girl a curious, cursory look before her mind began to wander again, checking out before the girl had even introduced herself.

"I'll worry about her later" she told herself, prioritizing the ever expanding mental plots for her future creations over any sort of social interaction, as was normal. Maybe this was why she always had the empty seat next to her… Nobody was dying to fill it. She was fine with that. Gave her space. Space to think about-

She paused her internal monologue for a moment as the empty space she was just thinking about was suddenly filled by the new girl. She turned her head and was caught off-guard for a moment. She hadn't paid much attention to her when she was at the front of the class, but now that she was up close, she could clearly see that the girl was missing an arm.

Being the relatively socially awkward girl she was, she couldn't, and moreover didn't think to, stop herself before the question exploded from her mouth.

"Oooh! What happened to your arm? Were you born like that? Is it part of your quirk? Did you lose it in an accident? Wait what if it's just invisible? Oh maybe you can detach it and send it on errands for you?"

The girl's large eyes grew larger as Mei spoke, her left hand coming over and covering the remainder of her right arm almost defensively. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it, then opened it again, doing an amazing impression of a goldfish as her cheeks began to tint red and her eyes got a little wet in the corners.

Somewhere behind her, she heard a clatter and the sound of the classroom door banging open and then rolling closed again, but she ignored that for the moment. "It's probably just that one boy again… Why does he always run away when I ask people questions?"

Refocusing on the problem at hand, even someone like Mei, who had only successfully read a social cue once or twice in her life, could tell that somehow, her questions had been upsetting for the girl. And while she wasn't sure exactly what the problem was, she was sure that she didn't want to deal with the aftermath.

"Hatsume Mei!" She announced, reaching out her right hand for the briefest moment before switching to her left and grabbing the girl's hand for a rapid and tight handshake. "Who are you? Sorry about the arm thing! You don't have to tell me."

The girl paused, staring down at her hand like she was figuring out if Hatsume was planning to rip it off or not before she shook her head and once again met Hatsume's crosshair eyes with her own.

"M-Malcor. Malcor Dax."

Mei grinned, letting go of the hand and zooming her vision in on Dax's face, her irises spinning as she did so. "Good to meetcha, Mal!" She then sensed a shift in the air around her as their sensei suddenly vanished from her position at the front of the classroom and materialized between their desks. She smirked down at the pair for a moment before speaking, her voice both stern and oddly jovial.

"If you two have finished, I'd like to start class now."

"Sorry Goto-sensei!" Came the immediate reply in unison from both girls as they spun in their seats and faced the front of the room just in time to see their teacher rematerialize at the front again.


"Dammit…" Dax muttered to herself as she stood outside the cafeteria at lunch. She had neglected to add funds to her lunch account when she enrolled herself in the school and, because she was too obsessed with the mirror that morning, she had also forgotten to bring any food.

She felt her stomach growl and decided that rather than stand there and watch other people enjoy their food, she'd just go out to the courtyard. Some time spent alone seemed like the best course of action. It wasn't like any of her classmates had invited her to sit with them anyway. If the reaction from that one boy at the start of class was any indication, she'd likely be alone until she graduated.

The brunette made her way out to the courtyard, smiling as she looked up at the many blooming cherry blossom trees surrounding the tall beech tree at the center. She closed her eyes, breathing in the clean April air. There was a bench beneath the beech tree and she made her way to it, crossing one leg over the other as she sat down. The girl pulled out her phone from the slim pocket in her skirt, laying it face-up on the bench. She hadn't had it long, but she had already made a few social media accounts and added a few important numbers, like the school office and a local restaurant that offered delivery.

She pressed her finger over the fingerprint reader to unlock it and then pressed a little harder, her finger seeming to flatten out and merge down into the touchscreen itself. The device vibrated in protest for the briefest of moments until her quirk fully took hold.

"Interface", as she called it anyway. She'd not heard of anyone else with the exact quirk before, not that she'd had an abundance of time to study it. Ever since she was five years old, she'd been able to take command of anything electronic she could get her hands on. Or legs… or arms… It didn't seem to matter what part of her touched the object, she was able to interface just the same.

It wasn't just control either. It was like she could become one with the object. Her first experience had been with a calculator around her fifth birthday. She'd picked it up and found it sinking into her hand slightly, but not completely. Her mind was suddenly overwhelmed. Looking back, she'd call it overclocking. She had suddenly been able to comprehend math on a level no five year old should, minus the instances of hyper-intelligence quirks anyway. She could still picture it clearly. Like it had happened only a few days ago instead of just over ten years…

She had rushed to her mom and dad, eager to show them what she could do… They had her do a few complex math problems and she had even begun to interface with the family cellphone before her parents took it away.

They were so happy! They told her they were proud of her. How she'd save the family with that quirk of hers…

"Save the family…" She said under her breath, shaking the memory from her mind as she closed her eyes again, her vision filling with all the information she wanted from her interface with the phone. Weather for the week, the exact time, latest news headlines. She paid special attention to any criminal activity near her new home, but didn't find anything alarming.

She was about to check her social media when she felt a presence near her. Her eyes opening in a flash as she hopped off the bench, striking what she depressingly realized was a half-variant of the opening combat stance she had learned when she was… "No, not now... "

She looked up to find the boy from before, the one who had run off at the start of class, giving her a strange look as she relaxed to a more normal posture and gave a nervous chuckle.

"D-don't um… don't you know it's rude to sneak up on a girl like that?..."

The boy looked like a deer in the headlights that just happened to have recently seen a ghost and run for its life. He was pale, out of breath, his clothing was a little ragged, his purple hair was threatening to come loose of the ponytail he was keeping it in, and he had obviously been sweating. If someone had told Dax that the boy just got done running a marathon, she couldn't have argued. The look he gave her though was… unsettling a bit. Like he just wanted her to vanish off the face of the earth but… somehow not in a mean way?

"What?" he asked, blinking a few times as if coming out of a trance. "What did you say?"

She cleared her throat, taking a hesitant step back and sitting down on the bench again beside her phone. "I um… I said it's rude to sneak up on a girl like that… How long were you even staring at me?..." She paused, suddenly re-experiencing her confusion from earlier when he had run out.

"And on top of that… Did you go running off this morning because of my arm, because… Well that's just…" She looked away, hiding her right side from him as best she could.

"I wasn't staring, I just got back in from" the boy paused, waving an arm in the general direction of the school's running track. His voice sounded… hollow, robotic. Like he was entirely devoid of emotion. That too was unsettling, but not entirely out of the ordinary in the age of quirks. She had run into a cashier at the convenience store who acted the same way. Only difference was this boy didn't end most of his sentences with an amphibian "kero".

"I left because I was having issues with my quirk," he explained, clearly expecting her to just understand that and move on. She wasn't really one to pry, everyone had their secrets, but still.

For a few moments he had seemed to turn inanimate, doing his best impression of a statue in a park. Until she noticed his eyes going over her uniform with… something behind them. It was less like he was checking her out and more like he was interested in the uniform itself. Finally he broke the silence, shaking his head before speaking.

"Sorry I will let you eat lunch..."

She was about to stop him but it was too late. He'd already beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the school building. Dax let out a long sigh, relaxing back on the bench and resting her hand on her phone again, letting her whole hand slot into the tiny machine this time as she closed her eyes.

Before she could go back to checking the web, however, she heard a loud, excited squeal and her eyes shot open like a horse out of the starting gate. At first she didn't see anyone, then she spotted her. Hatsume was sprinting down the hall of the school at top speed, heading straight for her. The pinkette threw open the door to the building and came bounding out, her skirt bouncing with each excited step as her irises spun and seemed to get larger.

She dropped to her knees in front of Dax and grabbed her arm and phone with both hands, lifting them up and examining them like a jeweler would a diamond. She then looked up into Dax's eyes, wild excitement practically radiating off of her.

"Mal! Why didn't you tell me you had such a cool quirk! What are you doing anyway? Are you actually the phone and the rest of your body is the quirk or… No! Maybe you can merge with phones! Nah that's too specific… OH OH! Can you merge with everything electronic! That's gotta be it, right? Right?!"

Dax jumped a bit at the physical and verbal assault, blinking rapidly as she tapped into the extra processing power her phone gave her to keep up with Mei's questioning. She hesitated before nodding. "A-actually um… yeah… I call it Interface… I can command and control anything electronic by touching and interfacing with it like this…" She shook her arm, the phone twitching on the end where her hand ought to be.

If she didn't have Mei's attention before, she definitely did now. Dax could almost hear the gears inside Mei's head spinning out of control. Whatever the pinkette was thinking, or plotting, definitely involved her and probably was not optional.

As if having read her mind, Mei's smile turned to a full cheshire grin as she brought her hands up and cupped both of Dax's cheeks, leaning in until their noses were inches apart, causing Dax's cheeks to erupt in a violent blush as her eyes grew even wider.

"That's it! I've got it! You are coming to my shop after school!" It wasn't an invitation. It wasn't even really an order… Mei had stated it as a fact. As much as Dax's instincts told her not to go running off with a strange woman she barely knew, she also knew that she would rather do that than spend another evening alone in her barren apartment.

She nodded after a few moments, gulping. "Y-yeah! Sure Hatsume, That sounds-"

"Perfect!" Mei replied, immediately letting go and spinning on her heel as she practically skipped back into the building, leaving Dax to reflect and try to process just what the hell had happened just now.

Dax watched her go and only began to relax again when she was completely out of her sight, closing her eyes and going back to her browsing, hoping for no further interruptions.

"At least she didn't say anything about the arm this time…"


Soon the first day was drawing to a close and Dax found herself more-or-less grappled by a bubbly pink haired ball of energy almost as soon as the final bell rang. She blushed a bit as Hatsume took her by the hand and began leading her out of the school building and off the grounds, the girl talking a million miles a minute.

"Gonna need measurements! Lots of measurements. Reflex tests! Oh! Need to do quirk testing and application limit exams! Maybe you can interface with some of my babies too!"

"B-Babies?..." Dax looked at the girl grasping her hand with renewed confusion. If the pinkette expected her to be able to interface with a human, let alone a baby, she was going to be disappointed. She thought better of trying to communicate that to her though, resigning herself to being dragged across the city and deciding to look at it as a sight-seeing opportunity.

The pair had already entered sections of Musutafu that Dax had not yet explored for herself in the few months she had been living there. There were restaurants, arcades, bars, even a few manga shops and a grand building with a statue of a man reading a book in front of it which she figured to be a library.

Eventually though, they arrived at the Hatsume residence. Dax had expected an apartment similar to hers, but was surprised to find what seemed to be a glorified storage unit. It was a large garage standing alone on the property with some sort of hacked together device attached to the wall by the door that looked like a combination of a standard keypad and a camera.

Mei marched right up to the pad and released Dax's hand, much to the brunette's relief. She then opened her right eye wide and glared at the keypad for a few seconds until a robotic voice emanated from the construct.

"Welcome home, Mother."

Dax jumped at the highly-computerized voice, the sound like something out of a retro, pre-quirk sci-fi flick. The door then began to slowly open, revealing what looked like a crazed mechanic's theme park.

There were bits of scrap metal and circuit boards scattered across the garage. A couple engine lifts and large hydraulic presses and a miniature crane mechanism mounted to the ceiling. The workbench had about every tool imaginable all neatly organized and laid out for easy access if needed. In the back corner there was the world's tiniest kitchenette complete with refrigerator, hot plate, and deep sink. Mounted on the wall next to the kitchenette was a murphy bed, currently folded into the wall and out of the way. In the other corner was a small room that looked like an addition, likely Hatsume's bathroom.

She was ripped from her analysis of the room by Hatsume gripping her hand again and pulling her to the center of the room, motioning for her to take a seat in a chair there. As she sat down, Hatsume grabbed a tape measure and started examining her arm before she paused, cocking her head to the side as she leaned in close once again, causing the blush to return to Dax's cheeks.

"You'll need to take that jacket off so I can get my measurements, Mal!"

She raised her eyebrow, "w-what measurements?"

"I'm measuring your arm, duh! How else do you expect me to make you a new one? Guessing? That's ridiculous! Well, I could do it that way, but then it wouldn't be perfect. And all my babies are perfect!" The pinkette gestured around the shop, indicating several inventions of hers and even a pile of smaller ones in the corner. Dax tried to ignore the ones that looked like they had survived a blast similar to the one she had as the girl's words finally registered with her.

"Y-You're going to what?!"

Hatsume rolled her crosshair eyes, idly playing with the tape measure and producing a set of calipers from seemingly nowhere. "Yes! But not if you don't take off the jacket and let me get my measurements."

Dax tried not to get her hopes up as she shrugged her jacket off. The idea of getting a prosthetic wasn't new, but if she was reading Hatsume right, this would be more than just some prosthetic… It'd be like a new, living arm.

She took a deep breath as the jacket was set aside by the pink haired girl, Dax's arms now barred before her. Her left was unremarkable, really. Slim, proportional, with a small, delicate hand at the end. Her right terminated roughly three or four inches below the shoulder, the - in Dax's opinion, at least - ugly scar tissue from the amputation wrapped over the end in an unnatural way. She felt her face grow hot again as she began to study the floor. It had been six months since she lost the appendage, only three since she moved to Musutafu after being released from the hospital. The reality of never seeing her right arm again was still relatively new for her. There were nights she'd wake up and try to adjust her blankets with a hand that simply no longer existed. As she thought about this, she fought back tears, holding them in and trying to re-bottle her feelings before they could overwhelm her.

Mei, seemingly oblivious to Dax's internal plight, immediately lifted her left arm, examining it and measuring the limb from the shoulder to the elbow, elbow to wrist, the length of each finger, and so on. Eventually having taken so many measurements on the tiny notepad she had pulled out that it filled three pages. Then she moved around to Dax's other side, muttering to herself as she shamelessly lifted the small remaining limb, examining it in even greater detail as indicated by the rapid spinning of her irises. Dax wasn't quite sure what those crosshairs allowed her to do, but she figured it was some sort of visual quirk. Microscope eyes maybe.

Eventually Mei backed off with a satisfied grin. "Alright! I've got everything! Now let's design our baby!" She spun and marched over to the workbench, spreading out a large, blue sheet of graph paper and pulling out her drafting pens, already doing preliminary sketches for the design.

"Our baby?... Interesting. Didn't plan on becoming a teenage mother." Dax stood, walking up behind her and leaning over her shoulder to see what she was doing. As the design became more and more clear, being revised several times already, Dax felt like she was not really… contributing as much as she'd like. She wasn't the most skilled with mechanics, not yet at least, but she did get an idea.

She pulled out her phone and set it on the bench beside Mei, interfacing with it with her index finger which elicited an excited gasp from the young inventor. She closed her eyes, looking up designs and plans for various kinds of advanced prosthetics from across the globe. Even some developed by the incredible minds of I-Island. Eventually she disengaged from her phone and took one of the pens, drawing out what she had just learned before it could fade from her mind.

The pair worked together for hours that night, drawing designs and then redrawing and redesigning again and again. Eventually, before either of them realized it, it was two in the morning and they had a finalized design.

"And she's complete!" The pinkette announced, bouncing on her heels like a kid in a candy store. She held up the messy blueprint for Dax's new arm. It would be slim, like her organic one, but they had decided on a few things to build into it considering the functionality of Dax's quirk. It would include a watch and calculator function to start with, with room for further upgrades later.

Dax grinned at the design, beaming with pride at how well it turned out. She was starting to believe this was really possible. She could get her arm back. And be better than she ever was for it! She frowned, however, when she noticed the title at the top of the blueprint.

"Super Mega Mecha Arm 3000? Hatsume-chan, really? Don't you think that's kinda… overdoing it?"

The pinkette looked offended, her crosshairs zooming in on Dax's brown eyes. "Not at all! A beautiful baby like this needs a beautiful name! How else will people know how amazing she is?"

Dax shook her head, taking the blueprint and crossing out a couple words before looking back up at Mei. "There. Much more professional. A name like this might get a company to buy it."

"Super Mega Mecha Arm 3000"

Begrudgingly, the girl agreed and set to work, already eager to get the first prototype ready. They were both exhausted, but Mei seemed… incapable of sleep. She invited Dax to crash on her bed that night while she tinkered and the tired brunette gratefully accepted, curling up on the thin mattress and falling asleep almost immediately.


A/N:
Hope y'all liked it! I was really nervous about posting, but I am glad I finally did it! Tell me what you thought and I'll try to reply to comments as best I can!

See ya next time!